It is conventional practice for individuals, whether at home or travelling, to launder a few articles of wearing apparel such as pantyhose, underwear, socks, etc., and then hang them up for drying overnight for use the next day. It frequently happens, however, that, for one reason or another, the articles are not completely dry when needed the next day. In order to solve this problem, various portable dryers have been developed for expediting the drying of the articles of apparel by placing the articles of apparel in a small portable dryer and applying heat thereto with a conventional hair dryer. Illustrative of portable dryers of this type are U.S. No. Pat. 4,199,873 issued Apr. 29, 1980 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,998 issued Sep. 26, 1989.
Although these portable dryers will effect drying of the wearing apparel, the apparel lies in a static position within the dryer, and is not subjected to the tumbling action which is produced in a standard sized clothes dryer, where the apparel is tumbled in a rotating drum while being heated. Consequently, it takes longer to dry the apparel, and the articles of apparel do not have the appearance or feel of articles which are tumbled in a conventional sized dryer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,998 issued Sep. 26, 1989 does disclose a small tumbler dryer, powered by a hair dryer, wherein a wall mounted unit is provided having a drum in which the apparel is placed, a drum having turbine blades which are rotated by the heated air from the dryer. Vents are also provided in the drum for admitting the air into the drum for drying the articles.